Goodbye is a Second Chance
by anothersocialcasualty
Summary: "He would've understood if she resented him for coming home alive when her sister didn't."  After returning home from the 50th Hunger Games, Haymitch Abernathy visits with the sister of his Hunger Games ally, Maysilee Donner.


Goodbye is a Second Chance

Rated T

Summary: After returning home from the 50th Hunger Games, Haymitch Abernathy visits with the sister of his Hunger Games ally, Maysilee Donner.

Author's Notes: This is going to be part of a larger story detailing the life of Haymitch Abernathy. Reviews are appreciated and feedback are appreciated. Contains possible spoilers from The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.

Haymitch walked down the familiar main street of District 12. It still looked exactly the same. But, to him, it'd never feel the same again. Nothing ever would. The sun shone brightly down on him but did nothing to brighten his mood. He hated the sun, hated flowers, hated anything beautiful. After everything that had happened, nothing beautiful should have existed anymore.

This was the first time he'd left his new house in over three weeks. The huge house in the Victor's Village he had moved into was still cluttered with unpacked boxes. He hadn't gotten around to opening them, and he wasn't sure if he could bear to look at their contents even if he did. It was almost as if they belonged to someone else. The boy he had been was long gone. That boy had died along with his mother and brother.

His head felt clearer today than it had in those three long weeks. Today was the first day he hadn't had so much to drink that he was barely coherent. His plan was not to leave his house until he absolutely had to, until the Capitol demanded an appearance. But yesterday he received an invitation he couldn't refuse.

Maysilee's sister, Malyna, had invited him to her house for tea. He had no interest in socializing with anyone, but felt as if he owed it to Maysilee to visit her sister and answer questions he was sure she'd have. It had all been broadcast, of course, their final days together, Maysilee's final days alive. They had worked together for a portion of their time in the arena and had bonded during that time, talking through the nights when it was nearly impossible to sleep. Now, he tried to think of anything significant her sister might like to know.

In his pocket, he carried a gift of sorts. When he'd first gotten home, he had intended to deliver this "gift" to Maysilee's family, but after the death of his own family, it had slipped low on his priority list. Maysilee's invitation called the token back to mind. A pin. A golden mockingjay pin. Maysilee's tribute token. He had pulled it from her shirt before the hovercraft plucked her lifeless body from the Arena. He thought it only right that her sister, whom Maysilee had told him was the original owner of the pin, should have it now.

One thought kept nagging in the back of his mind, though he had tried not to linger on it during the walk to the Donners' house. It was possible Malyna would blame him for Maysilee's death. He would've understood if she resented him for coming home alive when her sister didn't. If it would make her feel better to yell at and belittle him over tea, he had been through enough lately where he could accept that.

He stopped at her door and straightened his tie. Normally he wouldn't be caught dead in a dress shirt and tie that wasn't Capitol mandated, but he did it out of respect to his dead fellow tribute, his friend. The house seemed eerily quiet, so he knocked gently. It was only a moment before the door opened and Maysilee's sister appeared. Her warm smile relaxed his nerves and put to rest the thought that she was about to berate him.

He wished she and Maysilee hadn't been twins. Watching someone die and then looking into a very alive face so much like theirs was unsettling. Though he hadn't had much time in the arena to think about it, Maysilee was beautiful, so naturally, so was her sister.

"Please, come inside," she said in a voice much softer than Maysilee's. She stepped back from the door and he snuck a closer look at her. Her dress was probably worth enough to feed a family in the Seam for a week.

"Thank you," he said politely and couldn't help noticing the lack of emotion in his own voice. It sounded as dead as the rest of him felt.

"Make yourself at home," she invited, with that same warm smile. "I'll go get our tea from the kitchen."

He nodded in response, and she disappeared through a doorway that he assumed he assumed must lead to the kitchen. He glanced around the room she had left him in. It felt warm and welcoming with big windows to let in plenty of light. A fireplace stood near where he was standing. His eyes scanned the room and landed a shelf above the fireplace.

A single picture, in an elegant frame, sat on the shelf. Fresh flowers surrounded it. Though the face in the picture looked like the girl who he had just spoken to, he knew it was Maysilee. He reached out without thinking and picked up the picture, holding it closer for a better look. Her face smiled back at him, frozen in time.

Staring at that face nearly transported him right back into the Arena. He closed his eyes and could almost hear her voice, smell the forest they had hidden in. The creak of a door swinging open pulled him back to reality. He turned quickly and saw Malyna standing a few feet behind him, her arms holding a tray with tea and some type of cookie. The frame slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor, shattering to pieces at his feet.

His face must have been bright red, and he could feel that his eyes were misty. "Sorry," he muttered in a quiet , far-away voice.

Malyna set the tray down on a table and kneeled at his feet, scooping the broken frame into her hands after retrieving the precious picture. "It's alright," she assured him with a sympathetic smile. He hated her for that. He hated being pitied. He'd gotten sympathetic looks from everyone since he returned. It didn't help anything. He only felt more removed from the world.

"I should go," he told her quickly. He had to get away, get out, get anywhere but in Maysilee's living room with her lookalike sister showing him sympathy. He wanted to run into the woods and never think about the Games again. He wanted to disappear.

She simply nodded and set the picture and broken frame on the table beside the tea. "I understand," she told him. "Well… I don't," she added. "But I can imagine it can't be easy to be here… to look at me."

She understood that much at least. He ran his fingers through his hair and loosened his tie a bit. She couldn't fully understand, no one could. But she had lost her sister, and he was willing to bet she'd gotten her own share of sympathetic glances in town.

"I thought I could do it," he told her honestly, finally looking back up at her. "I knew Maysilee would want me to come make sure you're alright…" He idly wondered if Maysilee would have checked on his mother and brother if she had come home instead of him.

"I'm alright," she assured him. "As alright as I can be. I miss her… a lot." She teared up and focused on smoothing the front of her dress rather than looking up at him. He missed his mother, brother, and girlfriend, but he rarely said it out loud. He knew if he did, he would get emotional, and he made a vow not to let anyone get that close to him again. If he had no one, he had no one to lose.

"I miss her too," he said softly and took a napkin from the tea tray, passing it to her so she could wipe her eyes. She reached for it, and their fingers momentarily touched. It was the first human contact he'd had since losing everything. Her skin felt warm and soft, as only a merchant's daughter's hands could.

She wiped at her eyes and looked at him with purpose. He knew this was going to be it. She was about to make very clear exactly why she'd invited him over. He drew in a deep breath and held it.

"Thank you," she said in what had to be the most sincere tone he'd ever heard.

His mind drew a blank. She was thanking him? For what? He hadn't saved her sister. They'd worked together, but he hadn't convinced her to stick with him when she'd wanted to break off their alliance. He hadn't sacrificed himself for her.

"For what?" he just had to ask. Part of him wanted to nod and accept her thanks, but a larger part of him was too curious.

"For staying with her," she clarified. He could tell she was fighting hard not to cry again. "For not letting her die alone…"

He swallowed hard and looked down at his too-tight dress shoes He couldn't help but picture Maysilee's face in her final moments. There was no way he'd have been able to leave her. The gesture, seemingly so simple in the grand scheme of the Games, had meant a lot to him-everything, looking back on it now-and knowing that it meant something to Malyna too…

He closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself, again refusing to break down. Malyna stayed silent and unmoving, giving him all of the time he needed. When his eyes finally rose to meet hers, she looked different. She looked more familiar. And not just because she looked like Maysilee.

He reached into his pocket and he pulled out the pin. "I… I took this off of her shirt. She told me it meant a lot to her. She'd want you to have it," he explained slowly and placed it in her outstretched hand.

She closed her fingers around the pin and brought it to her chest, hugging it against her. He could tell it meant more to her than even he could understand, having that small part of her sister back with kept her fingers wrapped tightly around the small token and met his eyes again.

"I gave her this pin for her birthday. Her… last birthday," she spoke slowly, taking time with each word.

He nodded his head, "She told me she wore it the day of the Reaping and just couldn't leave it behind."

A small, sad smile crossed her lips as she picked up the photograph of her sister. Maybe he should have stayed silent and let her have a moment or two for reflection, but Haymitch was never one for shutting up.

"I'd like to have known her before the Games," he admitted. Of course, they'd run in different crowds back then. He was a Seam kid, and she grew up in the nice part of town. Most people in District 12 kept to their own kind.

"You'd have liked her," Malyna assured him, her smile a little less sad now. He tried hard to forget everything, but it seemed to make her feel better to remember. "She was very easy to like, unless you got on her bad side."

He had only known her a few days in the direst of circumstances, but he knew that well enough. He could feel the corners of his lips tug upward just slightly in what was the closest he'd come to smiling since before his Reaping.

"She loved to play the piano," she went on when he didn't speak. Perhaps she also found the silence hard to take. She pointed to a piano in the opposite corner of the room. Haymitch hadn't really noticed it until now. "Our parents got that for us for our 12th birthday," she told. "Maysilee loved that piano… I haven't played it since… since the last time I saw her."

Haymitch walked over to it and reached down to let his fingers trace over the keys, not pushing down hard enough to make a sound. It was weird, thinking how much time she spent playing this piano., There was so much he didn't know about her… so much that just wasn't important during the Games that seemed so important now.

Malyna joined him at the piano and sat on one side of the bench in front of the keys. She told him how badly she'd missed the piano, missed the hours she and her sister had spent together here. Her soft voice was the most soothing sound he'd heard in weeks, and he closed his eyes, trying to picture her story.

Malyna's fingers traced over the keys, creating a beautiful sound he'd never heard before. He silently sat beside her and kept his eyes closed as she played. The sound took him away from the living nightmare his life had become.

They sat like that for a long time. She played, and he drifted away. He wished they could have sat like that forever, in a peaceful place he never thought he'd find again. But like all good things in his life, that too had to end.

"That sounded beautiful," he told her, sure she'd gotten better compliments that meant far less to the person giving them.

"Thank you," she said politely but sincerely. "I'll play for you any time you like."

"Maybe I'll take you up on that," he told her, not wanting to commit to anything. Though the offer was, by far, the best he'd gotten in a long time.

"I don't want to ever forget how to play. If I have a daughter one day, I'm going to teach her to play that piano," she told him, keeping her eyes on her piano.

He was jealous at that moment. Jealous that she was able to make future plans like that. Plans to have children, plans that didn't involve the Games. He knew his life was going to forever revolve around those damned Games. He'd taken so much for granted before his Reaping. Haymitch left the house a little unsettled, still thinking about his own doomed future while Malyna would be able to make a real life for herself, to move on in a way he never could, to have a family again like the one that he had lost. At that time, he had no way of knowing that the daughter she'd one day teach to play would also be his daughter.


End file.
